6600K upgrade path.

[Gerr]

I have an i5-6600K system OC'ed to 4.6Ghz using a Corsair H100i v2 on a Asus Z170 mobo with 16GB Corsair DDR4-3000 RAM.  This system was built last Black Friday to be a pure gaming system.  However, I have started to use the system to transcode Blu-Ray movie files using Handbrake and that takes a long time on the i5, 6+ hours per movie as I use max settings.  I was thinking of upgrading my CPU to a i7-7700K this coming Xmas as it would be better for both games & transcoding.  However, with the pending release of the Coffee Lake 8700K, might it be best to replace both my CPU & mobo and get an 8700K system and matching mobo?  I don't think gaming would be much better vs a 7700K, but the transcoding would get an additional 2c4t to work with and I think that would make a decent difference.

 

Also, I currently have an EVGA FTW2 1080 video card, but plan on getting  2nd one this Xmas as well, which is another reason for the CPU upgrade as I think the i5 might bottleneck two 1080's in SLI, but a i7 shouldn't.  Or would an i7-7700K bottleneck two 1080's and thus I would need the extra horsepower of the 8700K?

 

I have to wait for Xmas as I get a chunk of money from my parents & in-laws, so not in a rush.

 

Thoughts?

[DocSwag]

You could always sell your mobo and go for the coffee Lake route.

 

Considering that vs. a 7700k you're getting 50% more cores I'd say it's worth it considering what you're doing.

[PCGuy_5960]

Wait for Coffeelake, it will be quite a bit better than the 7700K

[Trulop]

Waiting is never a bad option, especially with seemingly decent rewards for doing so. Supposedly the 8700k will have better single core performance to come with the newly added cored for better multithreaded workloads, but the proof is in the paint and we wont know anything for sure until it hits unfortunately. If you absolutely cant wait, the 7700k is a decent upgrade from the i5, but only has x16 pci lanes, so if you add in another video card, and are using any NVME drives or anything running pci, could limit in those areas, even though from what ive seen GPU running in x8 seem to do fine, not sure about if they are forced to run in x4 though due to too much on pci lanes. 

Up to you, but id vote wait

Edited September 1, 2017 by Trulop
Im also curious about how the Temps stack up, as the 7700k run hot already, even without adding two more cores.

[Princess Luna]

If you already had an i7 6700k you'd not need to do any thing in the first palce but i5's are pure junk even for gaming so yeah if you think you can sell the parts the i7 8700k will be miles better... it'll just cost you some hehe.

[Gerr]

Any parts I replace would be sold to help offset the costs.

 

While I could buy now, I would have to credit card the purchase and keep the balance until I get the Xmas money.  I don't mind doing that for a month, ie buying during the Black Friday sales, but not before then, so I have at least 2.5 months before I am going to buy.  So my question wasn't about waiting for the 8700K, but more like if it's worth the additional expense to get it, a new mobo, and a new Windows 10 license vs just replacing my current CPU.

[Jbonn386]

I'm not a fan of sli so maybe selling the 1080 and putting the difference for a 1080ti.

[Gerr]

1 minute ago, Jbonn386 said:

I'm not a fan of sli so maybe selling the 1080 and putting the difference for a 1080ti.

That is an option, not sure which way I will go yet.  But the SLI would be faster and look better, even if a single 1080 Ti is the smarter option.

[DocSwag]

5 minutes ago, Gerr said:

Any parts I replace would be sold to help offset the costs.

 

While I could buy now, I would have to credit card the purchase and keep the balance until I get the Xmas money.  I don't mind doing that for a month, ie buying during the Black Friday sales, but not before then, so I have at least 2.5 months before I am going to buy.  So my question wasn't about waiting for the 8700K, but more like if it's worth the additional expense to get it, a new mobo, and a new Windows 10 license vs just replacing my current CPU.

Windows licenses should be good for three reinstalls iirc so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

You'll probably pay $50-$100 more going for an 8700k, but I'd say it's well worth it. Games probably will see a small boost, and in stuff like handbrake you'll probably see stuff being 50% faster

[Trulop]

in terms of performance, you'll definately see some increases by switching to the 7700k, but in terms of if its worth it, its hard to say. Maybe if after reselling the parts you made a good portion back, but its not like the 6600k its some lowly peasant =P it may be an i5 but it does do a good job. as for the board, im sure what you have does a great job, so theres not really a need to upgrade to a whole new peice for minimal improvements unless you ABSOLUTELY needed the new features or maybe better OC or heat displacement from better heat spreaders. So, Overall just looking at the speculative increase in performance for the cost of jumping from 6600k-7700k, i would vote against it. I would advise saving money, watching what comes out over the next 6-12 months, and then upgrading cpu/motherboard in one go to whatever is the high end available ( IE. The 8700k, or other next gen intel / ryzen+ even )

[i_build_nanosuits]

i hope you game at 4K if you think you need a 2nd GTX 1080...also, i hope the games you play the most do have great support for SLI, cause SLI is shit these days.

 

I think you should consider getting an oculus rift instead of a second graphics card...A LOT more fun honestly...it's amazing.

[GDRRiley]

ether go with the 6700/770K or move to zen+ in a year because your consider grabbing a new mobo and cpu

[Gerr]

1440p @ 144Hz monitor. 

Witcher 3 @ ultra settings is a good example of what I play.

[Valentin17]

7700k is very good CPU no matter what.